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Record your parents’ stories — before the folder swallows them.
Here is how most of these projects go: a good intention, one long recording session, a folder of audio files with hopeful names — and then nothing. Nobody transcribes them. Nobody opens them. The stories were saved and lost at the same time.
A way that finishes
In Roon, your parent never faces a blank page or a recording marathon. As a contributor to your family’s story, they get gentle, specific questions by text message — about their childhood, their work, how they met, the ordinary days — and they answer by text or voice, in a few minutes, from their own phone. No app to learn. No weekly writing assignment. No deadline; unanswered questions never expire.
Rooney takes their exact words and writes them into chapters, next to the family’s photos from those years. Across time, Rooney also notices patterns and connections — the street that keeps appearing, the summer everything changed — and shows them back with the moments attached.
Your parent just answers questions. Rooney does the writing. Every word in the chapter came from them.
why now
The questions only they can answer have a closing date.
This is not a sales line; it’s the arithmetic of the thing. The stories about their parents, their first years, the days before you existed — one person holds most of them. Starting takes five minutes: add them as a contributor and let the first question arrive. Good questions to ask your grandparents and parents are ready when you are, and someday this becomes part of what you hand down on purpose.
plain answers
Questions, answered straight.
My parent isn’t good with technology. Will this work?
It’s built for that. Contributors answer by ordinary text message or voice — replying the way they’d reply to you. There’s no app for them to learn and no account for them to manage.
How is this different from a memoir or book service?
Book services give one storyteller a year of weekly prompts and end with a printed book — a good product for that job. Roon is your whole family’s living story: your parent’s answers become chapters alongside everyone’s photos, it starts from the media you already have, and it doesn’t end when a book ships. See the honest comparison on our StoryWorth alternative page.
What if my parent only answers a few questions?
Then you have a few answers, in their words, kept properly — which is infinitely more than zero. There is no completion requirement and no guilt mechanics. Unanswered questions simply wait.
Who owns the recordings and words?
Your family. Everything in Roon can be exported — originals included — at any time, and your family’s story is never sold and never used to train models.
We're building this with a small group of families first.
Roon isn't open to everyone yet. We're letting in a limited first group — people who'll help shape it, get in at founding pricing, and keep that price for as long as they stay. Add your email and we'll be in touch as spots open.
You're on the list.
We'll email you the moment a spot opens. Thank you for wanting this to exist.